I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived.
Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor.
- Topic: Common Sense
More Quotes from Oliver Wendell Holmes
More on Common Sense
Common sense is the very antipodes of science.
Much reading is an oppression of the mind, and extinguishes the natural candle, which is the reason of so many senseless scholars in the world.
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
Talk of mysteries! Think of our life in nature—daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it—rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! The actual world! The common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? Where are we?
People all over the nation are starved for honesty and common sense.
Every high civilization decays by forgetting obvious things.
A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.
